Maman Poulet | Clucking away crookedly through media, politics and life

Dublin LGBTQ Pride heading for Merrion Square?

March 1st, 2011 · LGBT

Dublin LGBTQ Pride today advertised for a licence to hold an event  in Merrion Square at the end of this years Pride March.  Merrion Square Park – perfect location for hanging out in comfortable accessible surroundings with areas for children and families, self contained, wheelchair accessible, picnic friendly.  Perfect. Given that 22, 000 people participated in the march last year it would be great to have a decent city centre central venue where many of those marching could go at the end to celebrate and be proud in their city.

However a rumour is circulating that some officials in Dublin City Council do not favour the use of the space by such a gathering and may block it.  It appears that lgbts may have to find their local councillor and ask them to ensure that the event will go ahead – interested in shooting off an email?  Find your councillor here. I heard that there are efforts by some to get an emergency motion tabled which will make the council meeting next week worth watching.  I’m waiting on a comment from the Dublin Pride board and believe that their AGM is due on Thursday where this issue will no doubt be discussed.

For years (more than I care to remember) Dublin LGBTQ Pride has ended it’s march with a short event at the back of Wood Quay.  Apart from the fact that the venue has out grown the size of the march, it is very inaccessible for people with disabiltiies, not comfortable place for people to relax and enjoy performances or celebrate the diversity and community feel that pride marches and festival ought to create.  The place of LGBT people in Dublin is also not enhanced by the location, after a strut down O’Connell Street that we end up hiding at the back of a building. There’s nowhere to go for food, not a lot of space to sit down and a rush to the pubs afterwards. It’s not a great advertisement to the many tourists who visit that time of year for the two week Pride festival.

Merrion Square has been used for many successful events including the Street Performance World Championships and is a fitting place near Government Builidng and historic locations of significance to the lgbt community.  Put simply it’s a nice gaff.  A well planned event with an alcohol free policy where the participants feel safe and free to enjoy themselves, watch performances and relax with plenty of space would be be a great illustration of Dublin as a welcoming city.  I know that Dublin City Council has supported Pride and other events to date and hope whatever opposition to Merrion Square being used is overcome.

My previous posts on Pride and the venue of the post pride party, alternatives and access  and the message being given etc.  Yes I’ve tended to talk about this before – it’s time that Dublin welcomed Pride and that we felt proud of our city and our place in it.

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DIT Disability Awareness Week

February 28th, 2011 · Disability

It’s DIT Disability Awareness week this week and I wanted to give it a mention because there is a lot of innovation amongst the students in working to raise awareness.  The Sign language Society and others  have been working with other student clubs on societies on things like poker tournaments through sign and the Guitar Society on signing music.  The full programme can be seen here.

With soccer games between students and deaf and visually impaired sports teams and link up with a business students society and Kanchi founder Caroline Casey the themes struck sure beat the usual appalling try out a wheelchair for half an hour methods I have witnessed over the years!  There is wide appeal of events on offer and a real effort to create awareness of disability issues.

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http://www.dit.ie/media/newsdocuments/2011/DIT_Disabilities_Awareness_week_event_breakdown.pdf
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What’s next?

February 28th, 2011 · General Election 2011, Irish Politics

No analysis here of the events gone by.  Well not yet. In fact you will have enough of that everywhere else on and off line.  Thanks to all for helping me out before and during the campaign and also on making the count more accessible.  Special thanks to everyone for all their emails, tips and hints – especially the TD desperation letters – most of them upon reflection were  unheeded as everyone I saw lost their seats except for Brian Lenihan I think.

Unsurprisingly enough I’m reading about the launch of the campaign to keep Labour in opposition – within the Labour Party that is.  It’s a small campaign mind you.

Dammed if they do and Double Dammed if they don’t maybe? And there will be  no looking for troubleshooters like programme managers of the 92-97 governments.   The Programme Managers kept those governments on message and focussed.  But there will be no money or want to see money spent in this way or no want for such posts to keep things ticking over.  Plenty of SpAd’s though (special advisers).  CV’s dusted off and people being nice over the next few weeks no doubt.

Expect lots of media coverage of the issues (including those which might be sent in by all the lobby groups.  Have thought before that the period after an election when everyone is shattered/upset or running round scared at the fact they have actually got elected is the worst time to form a government.

The ULA (best marketing decision ever by that group to group and rebrand by the way – no huge policy though so other than being against everything I still am not sure what they are for) and Sinn Fein will make Labour’s life extremely difficult from the opposition benches.  There are several lefty independents also depending on the way the wind is blowing.

Cue all the ‘waiting for the phone to ring’ phraseology and FG/Lab people being nice to each other on various TV and Radio programmes. (Are we not fed up of it already?)  And of course there are the Seanad nominations closing this week.   Savetheseanad.com is not registered yet but I have a mind to.

Ok sleep.

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Following the Count (s) Online

February 25th, 2011 · Elections, General Election 2011, Irish Politics

Finally we are ready

If you want to follow the count online there are plenty of ways to do it.

You can do it via twitter – you don’t have to have a twitter account to do this. You can do a search for your constituency by searching for the tag at search.twitter.com

Or you can go to Rónán’s site and see what the last few tweets about the constituency were.

For the more determined you can follow people who are tallying at counts around the country – we have a list of the names of the #tallytweeters.

RTE are using the constituency tags and have set up 43 twitter accounts where their reporters will be tweeting from count centres. All their latest news online can be found here. RTE have had a very good election online and I’m saying that before the count starts.

There will be live blogs at the Irish Times and Irish Independent and The Journal.ie will be updating the counts during the day.

I won’t be liveblogging during the count as I will be elsewhere, and I doubt that election liveblogs will be the fastest way to get the news in 2011, we have moved on and it will be fun to see where twitter takes us.

If anyone is doing anything online on count day and would like a mention please leave a comment and I’ll include them.  Also any other #tallytweeters please @ me @suzybie and let me know what count you will be attending and I’ll include you – Dublin Northside in particular is looking thin!

Enjoy!

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Bertie Ahern writes to his constituents one more time

February 24th, 2011 · Elections, General Election 2011, Irish Politics

You may remember on the eve of the 2007 General Election that Bertie Ahern dropped a leaflet to his constituents looking for second preferences for Cyprian Brady and no mention of Mary Fitzpatrick.   Cyprian got elected with only 939 first preferences as Bertie’s surplus went straight to him as directed and got him elected.

Today constituents received a letter hand addressed and stamped where Bertie asks for a Number One vote for Cyprian and mentions his name thirteen times.  One mention of Fianna Fáil and no logo and one mention for Mary Fitzpatrick  – ‘admire greatly’.  I doubt the feeling from the Fitzpatrick camp is mutual!

Thanks to the chicken for a scan of the letter.

Bertie Ahern’s late night letter about Cyprian Brady

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